Thursday, May 19, 2016

Arizona ER visit

I'm going to try to tell this as vividly as I remember.
I'm also purposely leaving out things that are too private for the Internet. Those details are for my private blog ;) It was a very scary day for us!

So one of the nights we were in AZ we spent in the ER. IT ended up being about nine hours actually.

We were all fast asleep. I was in the bed, Presley in the pack-n-play across the room and Kyson was asleep on the floor. At about 1:30 AM Kyson woke up really shaky and thirsty. I got him a drink and sent him back to bed. About twenty minutes later he woke up in a sheer panic and straight up screaming! I woke up confusing and freaking out before my eyelids could even open. Presley slept through it somehow, which is crazy because she's one of the lightest sleepers in the world. I took Kyson downstairs thinking maybe his blood sugars were low (hence the shaking! Diabetes runs heavily in my family so my instincts were kicking in.) so I tried getting him to eat something but it wasn't working. Nothing was calming him down. He was screaming in pain, begging me to help him and oh how I wish I could've! Eventually my sister came downstairs and tried to help. We gave him some Tylenol, got him to lay down and tried giving him water, rubbing his back, turned on cartoons, anything to try and calm him down. Nothing was working! My BIL gave him a Priesthood blessing and as soon as it was over I knew I needed to take him to the hospital. We loaded up and took off. We arrived at Banner Baywood Medical Center just a few minutes later. Luckily for us there wasn't a single person in the waiting room. We got all checked in and because of his symptoms and how unresponsive he was the doctors met us in the room. They took one look at him and knew exactly what it was. He was stung by an Arizona Bark Scorpion. The symptoms he had were shaking profusely, loss of speech, couldn't control his tongue, fever, sweating, hallucinating, he couldn't walk or even stand and a few other things. They determined because of how bad his symptoms were he was stung at least three times.

And then it hit me, Presley was still asleep in the room it happened. SO we frantically called my BIL to get her out of that room asap! He did and immediately started tearing that room apart looking for the scorpion. Wanna know where he found it? Underneath my pillow! UGH!!

Anyways, it turns out that Anti Venom costs thousands of dollars PER DOSE! And they never know how many doses it'll take before it works. So we decided to do it the old fashioned way. Some good ole' Morphine and lots of rest!

As soon as Dave found out and knew we were ok he called his Dad in North Dakota to tell what happened. His Dad, who is a Bishop made some phone calls and got in touch with the Bishop of the area the hospital was in and asked if he could pay us a visit. He came and he brought the missionaries with him. They gave Kyson another Priesthood Blessing and went on their way. I can't even describe how much it meant to me knowing that complete strangers were so willing to come help us out and be there for us. My BIL also got his Home Teachers wife to babysit Presley and my nephew while my sister and BIL went to work. I was so thankful!

Kyson eventually started to calm down and the hallucinations stopped. He still couldn't walk and I literally had to carry him to the bathroom every time he had to pee, which was 8 times in 9 hours might I add, ha! After a few hours he was able to eat some chicken, drink some juice and lay still. They wouldn't release him until he was able to walk again. I was determined to get him walking again, so we took walks often around the ER. The nurses began to call him the Scorpion King and let me tell you, Kyson loved it!

We had so many phone calls, texts, and messages from people I hadn't heard from in months. News spreads fast in my family and it was nice that everyone was praying for him. We finally got the ok to go home and I was thrilled!! It took Kyson three days to stop shaking, walk normal, get his strength back and get back to the happy kid he was! This was literally the scariest experience for me as a mom! I am so glad we chose that hospital because the staff there treated us better than a hospital staff has ever treated us! I was 150% happy with our visit. You could just tell that the doctors and nurses loved their job and were happy to be helping us! They even called a few hours after we left to check up on him. Talk about customer service!